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Featured Projects and Programs

Carl Sagan Center researchers of the SETI Institute will be presenting science results on the study of Mars’ surface and Earth analogs, Europa, and Helene, a satellite of Saturn, during the 46th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference March 16-20.

Carl Sagan Center researchers of the SETI Institute will be presenting science results on the study of Mars’ surface and Earth analogs, Europa, and Helene, a satellite of Saturn, during the 46th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference March 16-20.

During the Ambassadors program, 28 educators – from both classrooms and informal venues such as museums and planetariums – will be taken aloft onboard NASA’s SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) aircraft, and will spend hours monitoring and interacting with the astronomers

In the giant impact hypothesis, the Moon accretes from a disk around the proto-Earth. Sarah discusses the unusual state of the Earth after a high angular momentum impact: a continuous pressure- and rotationally-supported fluid-to-vapor structure from the mantle to the disk.

SETI Institute research scientist Michael Busch used radar transmitters to perform an observation known as radar speckle tracking, a technique that uses the seemingly chaotic radar pattern reflected by the uneven surface of the asteroid to measure how it spins.

The Rosetta Lander, Philae, landed on 67P/Churyumov Gerasimenko on 12 November 2014. Before this could happen, a landing site had to be selected within just 2 months, based on data from the Rosetta Orbiter instruments and analyses on flight dynamics and illumination profiles. Philae was programmed to perform a First Scientific Sequence, immediately following touch down, and then enter its long term science mode.

The American Astronomical Society has awarded him its coveted Education Prize for “a lifetime of outstanding contributions to the understanding of astronomy by college students and the public, and to the debunking of astronomical pseudoscience through his textbooks, popular books, slide sets, web sites, articles, public talks, and work with the media.”

The Giant Impact theory is the leading explanation for the Moon's origin, but mysteries remain in the conditions leading up to the event. Billy Quarles presents a numerical model that considers the penultimate orbits of the Solar System, when five terrestrial planets are present.

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